1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a bearing device composed of a bearing and a washer integrally formed with each other, which can be readily loaded to a shaft and its fitting operation can be greatly facilitated.
2. Background Art
Conventionally, as one example of a small electronic device provided with a bearing component such as a bearing, there has been provided so far a disk player for reading out data recorded on an optical disk or the like. The disk player is provided with a disk loading device for carrying the optical disk into and/or out of the disk player, and is further provided with a carriage roller for sending the optical disk to a predetermined location.
The bearing device for use in a disk loading device is explained below, by taking up a carriage roller provided in the loading device as an example. FIG. 16 is a front view of a carriage roller to which a conventional bearing device is attached, FIG. 17 is an exploded perspective view showing the state in which neither a bearing nor a gear is attached to the carriage roller, FIG. 18 is an exploded perspective view showing the state in which both a bearing and a gear are attached to a carriage roller, FIG. 19 is a magnified front view of an end portion of a carriage roller and FIG. 20 is an exploded perspective view of a carriage roller and a base flap.
In these figures, reference numeral 11 denotes a shaft, 11a denotes a stepped portion, 12 denotes a rubber roller for carrying a disc-shape recording medium such as an optical disk (not shown) to a predetermined location, and is integrally formed with the shaft 11, 13 denotes a bearing secured to the shaft 11, the shifting movement thereof toward the rubber roller 12 being limited by the stepped portion 11a. Further, numeral 14 denotes a gear that is pressure-inserted to be fixed to the end portion of the shaft 11, numeral 15 denotes a base flap for rotatably supporting the shaft 11, and numeral 15a denotes a bearing-holder recess for holding the bearing 13.
The operation of the conventional bearing device is as follows.
As shown in FIG. 20, by engageably inserting the bearing 13 attached to the shaft 11 into the bearing-holder recess 15a, the shaft 11 is rotatably supported by the base flap 15.
Since the conventional bearing device is constructed as such, in order that the bearing 13 is not brought into contact with the rubber roller 12, the shaft 11 has to be formed with the stepped portion 11a and the rubber roller 12 has to be integrally formed with the shaft 11, and because of this construction, there has been such a problem that the fabrication thereof requires much labor and the total cost is thereby raised.
For solving this problem, there has been provided so far a carriage roller, in which the rubber roller is not integrally formed with the shaft but is formed as an individually different component, and the shaft is inserted into the rubber roller. The carriage roller constructed as such is further formed with a washer between the bearing 13 and the rubber roller for preventing the rubber roller from shifting in the axial direction of the shaft and brought into contact with the bearing 13.
However, as both the bearing 13 and the washer explained above are made thin and small, the problem still remains that the installation of these components to the shaft is rather difficult, and that the installation itself cannot be readily automated.
The present invention has been proposed to solve the problems aforementioned, and it is an object of the present invention to provide a bearing device, which can be easily mounted to the shaft and the automation of its mounting operation can also be readily implemented.